


they move on tracks of never-ending light

by perennials



Series: a matter of infinite hope [6]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Established Relationship, KuroTsukki Fluff Week 2018, M/M, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 20:20:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17107469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennials/pseuds/perennials
Summary: You kept calling out my name, over and over again, but you sounded like you were crying.





	they move on tracks of never-ending light

**Author's Note:**

> PROMPT: SLEEPTALKING
> 
> congratulations on season 4. this is extremely not fluffy. i am sorry
> 
> cw: brief mentions of death. but no actual dying
> 
> title is taken from a song by this will destroy you

i.

After the war, Kei plants white poppies in the backyard.

 

Tetsurou sits on the stone steps behind him as Kei carefully buries each seed in the ground, knees drawn up to his chest and one hand pressed over his shoulder. It’s cold out this time of the year; his nose and ears are all red. Kei makes a mental note to gather wood for the fireplace later.

 

When he’s done, he pats the earth with the palm of his hand, speaking a silent prayer into the misty, dew-laden morning. Then he rises to his feet and stretches.

 

“Well then,” Tetsurou steps forward to admire his handiwork, smiling faintly despite the still-healing scar on the left side of his face. There are bags under his eyes. Kei cannot remember when there weren't.

 

He imagines all the fae folk crying in the woods, mourning the passing of foolish, battle-hardened children.

 

“Shall we have breakfast?” Tetsurou threads his fingers through Kei’s even though they’re freshly-stained, dirt caked under his fingernails and the thin silver band of his ring. The day stretches out ahead of them, long and empty and unaccounted for.

 

“Yeah.” Kei squeezes his hand briefly. “Let’s go back in.”

  
  


ii.

They don’t talk about the things they lost— only the things they carried, and carried to safety. Only the things they managed to bring home. Miles and miles apart from each other, separated by the kind of distance no spell could ever breach, all they could do was pray. Tetsurou flashed crimson devil’s teeth with every swing of his blade, breaking through enemy lines with ruthless, cunning precision. Kei set things on fire. Kei set the horizon on fire.

 

They don't talk about the things they lost, which means they don't talk about the fact that Kei has to walk into the woods in his old worn boots to gather firewood now instead of spelling warmth into the house. It's not a lot of extra work, anyway, and his job has always been primarily to mix salves and medicines for hurting people, not to destroy them. Their losses belong to no one but themselves.

 

Sometimes he still dreams about being out there, the sound of spellwork in his ears and the smell of death sinking right down into his bone marrow. Sometimes there's lightning in clear skies. Sometimes in his dreams someone dies, and he's never quite sure who it's going to be, but at least it's never them, so he doesn't tell Tetsurou about it. He wakes up; he goes back to sleep. The interior of their cottage is dark and familiar and comforting, and Tetsurou smells like cinnamon and sweet tea beside him. Every time he wakes up, he goes back to sleep.

 

Goodness knows they all have their own specters these days.

  
  


iii.

“Hey,” Yachi says softly, as Kei rifles through the contents of his rucksack, now stuffed with minerals and precious stones. “I know it’s a bit out of my place to be saying this, but I hope the two of you are getting along all right.”

 

Kei pauses, the interior of the shop buzzing with magic around him. He thinks about the blades in the tool shed left uncleaned and untouched, the dust gathering on the piano. He thinks about the insignia on the silver robes he put away— a magician’s robes, heralding death.

 

By now, Tetsurou should be done with his usual  ~~ patrol ~~ wander around the village perimeter. Kei closes his eyes. He imagines Tetsurou sitting by the window with a book open on his lap, glasses slip-sliding down the bridge of his nose. He imagines the sharp glint of the afternoon, the green of the woods behind him.

 

He flashes her a small smile. “Thank you.”

 

Yachi fiddles with the quills scattered around as she speaks, eyes glittering like diamonds. “How’s Kuroo’s shoulder?”

 

“It’s healing surprisingly fast.” Kei pulls the string on his rucksack, slings it over his arm. “He just can’t swing his sword around whenever he feels like it, is all.”

 

“But, well, he doesn’t need to anymore, right?” Yachi flops down onto the counter, her arms stretched out in front of her. Business around these places is slow on weekdays, and even with Kei here the store feels a little too large, too vacant.

 

“He doesn’t need to anymore,” Kei agrees. “No more armies to fell, these days.”

 

Yachi stretches out her hand, prods Kei lightly in the chest. “I’m glad you came back safe, Tsukishima,” she says, very seriously.

 

“Thank you,” he says again, and means it with all of his heart.

  
  


iv.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Tsukishima Kei. I’m not going to die either, so you definitely can’t, all right? You’re better than all of them. You’re the best magic-user I’ve ever known.

 

“I love you, Kei. I fucking love you. Don’t leave me behind.”

  
  


v.

At the end of the day, Tetsurou’s shoulder is nothing. It is no match for Tetsurou’s heart, which is a bleeding, wounded thing. And Tetsurou’s heart is no match for Kei’s head, which is beaten and scratched up beyond saving.

 

Always, he dreams.

 

On the kinder days he is a child again; nervously reciting his first incantation, looking for the fae folk in the woods, picking out constellations in the sky.

 

At other times, he is himself, and the dreamscape is broader, heavier, full of things he can’t put a name to, faces he doesn’t quite remember. He remembers the first time he learned to make a death-inciting poison, all the evenings he spent playing hide and seek with the spirits on the outskirts of the village. He relives his first kiss, seventeen and pressed up against the wall by a beautiful boy with messy hair and glittering gold eyes.

 

Today, the hour is late, the sunset dyed fierce orange and bruised violet against the silhouettes of trees outside their cottage. The sky darkens much faster at this time of the year, and all the good children and weary soldiers have gone to bed, tucked away underneath the covers like good luck charms.

 

Tonight, Kei has a dream.

  
  


vi.

Picture this: Tetsurou falling in slow motion, the broken promise, the thin silver ring falling off his finger.

 

Picture that. Just picture that.

  
  


vii.

“Kei. Kei,  _ Kei.” _

 

When he opens his eyes, it’s dark. It’s dark, he’s in their bedroom, he’s alive. Tetsurou’s lying on his side inches away from him, gripping Kei’s shoulders and shaking him gently. He’s trembling.

 

Half of Kei still swears he can taste iron in the back of his mouth; if he focuses he can still hear the dull chanting of spells, the sound of death in the air. He is standing in a field of lilies off to the north of Shiratorizawa, watching as Tetsurou—

 

“Kei. It’s all right. I’m here.”

 

It takes him a second to realize that Tetsurou’s hands aren’t trembling— it’s  _ him.  _ Kei feels cold all over, like he’s fallen asleep at the bottom of a frozen lake and can barely see the surface. Kei feels, Kei feels, Kei— shifts forward under the covers and buries his face in the crook of Tetsurou’s neck. Breathes in the familiar scent of cinnamon and sweet tea. Wraps his arms around Tetsurou’s waist and lays there, half-suspended in the water, as Tetsurou combs his fingers through his hair gently.

 

Gently, gently. Breathe, Kei, breathe.

 

Tetsurou kisses the top of his head.

 

“You were talking in your sleep, Kei. You kept calling out my name, over and over again, but you sounded like you were crying. It scared me.” Tetsurou’s chest rumbles with sound even as he whispers each word into his ear. Kei presses himself into him, folding into that warmth.

 

“That scared me,” Tetsurou repeats quietly.

 

Kei draws himself back and looks at him, really looks at him. In the darkness of their bedroom, Tetsurou’s face is barely visible, the light from the stained-glass window falling in rivulets across his high cheekbones, his nose, the bow-curve of his lips. In the two, three a.m. silence, he looks like an angel. Nothing like the devil’s hand, the swordsman with the gold chains around his wrist.

 

Kei blinks away the motion-blur. “I’m sorry,” he says.

 

“No, no,” Tetsurou leans forward, kisses him slow and sweet. “Don’t apologize. Shit happens.” He nuzzles into Kei’s cheek.

 

“Although, I do have one question.” He kisses the corner of Kei’s eye as Kei moves his hands up to his face, rubs his thumbs against the skin under his eyes. Tetsurou bumps their foreheads together.

 

“What were you dreaming about?”

 

Kei smiles, and it’s not sad, no, but it’s not completely happy either. He hasn’t left the war behind completely yet, even though it’s been three months and twelve days, and there isn’t any dust on the piano anymore. He’s gotten better at using the stove and baking bread without relying on the whims of yeast sprites, and Tetsurou’s shoulder is almost completely healed. The scar on the left side of his face is now nothing more than an afterthought.

 

Still, still, still.

 

Kei kisses him back tenderly, and then spells a lie into the cool night air.

 

“I dreamed that all the flowers in the backyard died. That’s all.”

  
  


viii.

The white poppies in the backyard bloom a few weeks later. They’re beautiful, almost transparent, paper thin blossoms that Tetsurou picks and leaves lying around the house like good luck charms. Kei makes a wreath out of a few, and gives it to Yachi.

 

On a warm, summery morning, he sits on the stone steps leading to the backyard and watches Tetsurou try to coax a butterfly into the palm of his hand. It flits away towards the woods after a minute, and he sighs. Kei snorts.

 

“The tea is going to go cold,” he comments, standing and shaking out a crick in his neck. “Shall we go in?”

 

Kei holds out his hand, and Tetsurou takes it, threading their fingers together.

 

“Yeah,” he smiles crookedly, looking like a dream under the honey-gold light from the sun. His eyebags are gone. His gaze is steady.

 

He squeezes Kei’s hand gently.

 

“Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nikiforcvs) or [tumblr](http://corpsentry.tumblr.com/)
> 
> hello.....today was the winter solstice so i had two (2) tang yuan which i guess are like mochi but squishier and wetter. or something?  
> anyway i woke up after like 5 hours of sleep and started thinking about this stupid idea and couldn't go back to sleep so i wrote it even though it truly, truly does not fulfill the memo. but yes. i quite like it i guess. it's pretty chill  
> i spent like half the day looking for fanart on pixiv. i have a lot of fanart saved now. would u like some fanart? i am Ready 2 Share  
> as always, seriously, thank you for reading my stuff! it means a lot to me. all kudos, comments, and bookmarks are truly, wholly appreciated. i love u
> 
> have a good one


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